Author: Nora Lafi

“Collective decision-making and foreign interference in the Latin community of Ottoman Istanbul“

March 06, 2023. 16h00-18h00 (Berlin Time). Registration: https://forms.gle/A8AJDvdaQyUiG5qD8

In the Ottoman governance of religious plurality, no Latin Catholic millet was ever proclaimed despite thousands of inhabitants of this denomination living in Ottoman lands until the proclamation of the Turkish Republic. Roman Catholics, also called Levantines in the historiography, were supposed to be directly linked to foreign state authorities, namely the papacy, but also national governments in Paris, Vienna and Rome. Furthermore, within this religious denomination, the social, ethnic, linguistic and national diversity was so strong that it seemed even more difficult to establish a homogenous community with a clear authority than for other non-Muslim groups. These observations have often led historians to associate Latin Catholics to foreign protection and exclude them from the Ottoman pluralist system although many were in fact Ottoman subjects. This paper studies various projects led by Latin Catholics in Istanbul in which, on the contrary, an attempt to create a community with collective decision-making processes was taking place in the 19^th century. Whether it is a charitable association, the administrative task of the Latin Chancellery or the attempt to create a millet after the 1908 revolution, the paper highlights various possibilities of creating a community based on collective decision-making. Moreover, various examples show that this population also carried with them a (distorted) memory of civic institutions from Genoa and other Italian city-states of the Middle Ages. Along the way, the political projects of local Latins, influenced by civic republicanism, Ottoman reforms and the 19^th century surge in associations, were interrupted by the interference of representatives of the Vatican, of the Quai d’Orsay and European missionary congregations.

Gabriel Doyle, works as a lecturer at SciencesPo. He holds a Masters in History from EHESS Paris (2015) and a double Bachelor in History and Political Science from Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne (2013). He obtained his PhD in 2021 at EHESS Paris (under the supervision of Nathalie Clayer) with a thesis on the urban and spatial aspects of relief in late Ottoman Istanbul. Among his publication: “Le missionnaire aux 40 clés” (in Social Sciences and Missions, Brill, 2020)

Next session:

March 27, 2023: Claudia Gatzka (Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg), “Democracy as Local Practice. Citizens, Politics and Elections in West Germany and Italy (1945-1976)”

“Decision-Making Processes in Samsun and Trabzon: Land Dispute and Claiming Justice (1847-1857)”

February 27, 2023. 16h00-18h00 (Berlin Time). Registration: https://forms.gle/A8AJDvdaQyUiG5qD8

This presentation will look at the local government and justice mechanisms as seen through the case of land dispute in the mid-19th century Samsun. Although it concentrates on a specific historical moment of the inclusion of Trabzon province into Tanzimat (Reordering and centralization policies), it will discuss the articulation of old and new forms of government and justice. The ownership dispute over the land reveals not only the agency wide range of actors such as notables, peasants, local judges and müftis but also several institutions and practices such as petitions, district and regional councils, supreme council of judicial ordinances, centrally appointed inspectors, foreign consuls, and the representatives of Greek Patriarchate. By following the steps for the conflict resolution, this presentation will address the alliances of local and central powerholders, the shortcomings of the domination of old notables in newly established provincial councils and corruption due to the abuse and lack of local information.

Çanay Șahin is a research fellow at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient in Berlin. She helds a Ph.D. in History, (“The Rise and Fall of an Ayan Family in Eighteenth Century Anatolia: The Caniklizades (1737-1808)” from Bilkent University, Ankara (2004) and was from 2005 to 2017 Assistant Professor at Yıldız Technical University (Department of Economics, Economic History) in Istanbul. Among her publications: “The Economic Power of Anatolian Ayans of the Late Eighteenth Century: The Case of the Caniklizades”, International Journal of Turkish Studies, 11/1-2, 2005, 29-49.

Next Session:

March 6, 2023: Gabriel Doyle, “Collective Decision-Making and Foreign Interference in the Latin Community of Ottoman Istanbul“

“The politics of the poor in Egypt – analytical reflections and empirical findings”

February 20, 2023. 16h00-18h00 (Berlin Time). Registration: https://forms.gle/A8AJDvdaQyUiG5qD8

In my talk, I present findings and observations grounded in almost 20 years of qualitative research engagement in Egypt and with marginalized communities in Cairo. I sketch the diverse „politics of the poor“ in the framework of authoritarian social contracts, looking into formal and informal ways of participation. I will speak about the role of the urban poor in the uprisings of 2011 building on S. Ismail and my own work. I argue that poor people use manifold ways of engaging the state and its institutions, carving out new spaces between resistance and accommodation.

Cilja Harders is Professor at Freie Universität Berlin, where she heads the Center for Middle Eastern and North African Politics. Among her publications: “The Politics of the Poor in the Middle East and North Africa. Between Contestation and Accommodation” (in Roel Meijer, Zahra Babar, James Sater (ed.) 2020: Routledge Handbook on Citizenship in the Middle East and North Africa, Routledge, 2020); Staatsanalyse von unten: urbane Armut und politische Partizipation in Ägypten, Hamburg, 2002.

Next session: February 27, 2023: Çanay Șahin, “Decision-Making Processes in Samsun and Trabzon: Land Dispute and Claiming Justice (1847-1857)

This seminar gathered online all the doctoral students of the HISDEMAB research programme. Presentations by PhD students (40mn + 20mn discussion) were dedicated to an overview of their advancement in the dissertation writing process. The discussion was conducted by Nora Lafi, in the presence of the supervisors of each doctoral work.

10.00-11.00                Elisabeth Kimmerle

11.00-12.00                Robin Schmahl

12.00-13.00                Marianne Dhenin

13.00-14.00                Lunch break

14.00-15.00                Abdelqader Amer

15.00-16.00                Ahlem Hajaji

Presentation guidelines:

• Debriefing of the archival field research: what was found (and not), how it corresponds to the expectations, how it relates to the general questionings of the dissertation (5mn)
• Debriefing of how each PhD student situates him/herself with respect to the bibliographical state of the art. How the work is inspired by existing methods, how it relates to contemporary questionings, what the work will bring to academic debates in the field (10mn)
• Justification and explanation of the logic of the table of contents with regard to the problematization (5mn)
• Presentation of how single chapters tackle the mains questionings of the thesis (10mn)
• Reflection on the writing process and on the formal construction of the thesis as an object (narrative style, general tone, graphical dimension…). Precise presentation of what is already written and time-table of what remains to be written (5mn)
• Main points of the contribution of each doctoral thesis to the HISDEMAB research project (5mn)

“From Empire to Dromocracy. Building the Infrastructure State in Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, 1839-1908”

February 06, 2023. 16h00-18h00 (Berlin Time). Registration: https://forms.gle/A8AJDvdaQyUiG5qD8

“Infrastructures are critical locations through which sociality, governance and politics, accumulation and dispossession and institutions and aspirations are formed, reformed, and performed” (Appel, Anand, and Gupta, 2018, 3). In particular, roads have developed such a strong influence on society that Dimitri Dalakoglou speaks of “dromocratic society” (society ruled by roads). However, as especially Jo Guldi has shown, the transformative power of infrastructure is not only a product of our times, but has changed politics since the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In the case of the Ottoman Empire and its breakaway provinces that after 1878 became Bulgaria, the new role of the state as provider of infrastructure was initially planned as a participatory process. However, due to the systematic failure of the Tanzimat state, its administrators either sought to fulfill their infrastructural promise to the subjects by means of multinational capitalism (Âali P.) or statist, but dictatorial means (Midhat P.). After 1878, Midhat’s statist developmental policy was adapted and perfected (Halil Rifat P.), but to serve the Hamidian system and its mistrust of the subject. While the Bulgarian state initially continued Midhat’s infrastructural policy, Bulgarian society managed to more strongly intervene in decision-making concerning road and railroad policy. The process however led to a harsh rivalry between the regions for connectivity and finally hindered the creation of a coherent rail network. The presentation will revisit key moments of road and railroad development policy in both countries to understand the impact of infrastructure on political culture from the reform era to the age of nation states.

Malte Fuhrmann is a historian of the Eastern Mediterranean, Southeast Europe, and Turkey in the modern era. He is the author of Port Cities of the Eastern Mediterranean. Urban Culture in the Late Ottoman Empire, Cambridge: University Press, 2020, and Konstantinopel – Istanbul. Stadt der Sultane und Rebellen, Frankfurt/M.: Fischer 2019.

Naïli (Falestin) (guest ed.), Jerusalem’s Interrupted Futures, Special Issue of Jerusalem’s Quarterly, 92, 2022. Introduction: “Reclaiming the Past, Disrupting the Present” (p.5-9).

Heritage, archives, conservation, concepts and practices in the mirror of authenticity and the challenges of digitalisation : reflections on the cases of Ghadames, Nefta and Tozeur

December 5, 2022, Online

This workshop is conceived in the continuity of the research questions of the HISDEMAB programme and the discussions held during the international workshop in Berlin in May 2022 on archives, the role of civil society and the challenges of digitalisation. The participants are invited to reflect on the notion of heritage from the point of view of urban morphology and different architectural typologies, as well as from the point of view of the mobilisation of the notions of archive and conservation. It will also be a question of discussing, among other things, the research issues relating to the civic role of associations for the protection of heritage and archives.

How can the existence of local institutions for the conservation of public and private archives, as well as tangible, architectural and intangible heritage, influence the identity of the city and its relationship with the notion of authenticity over time ? How does the consensus around the issue of protection develop, or conflicts persist, and how do collaborative discussions or decisions take place in the various communities within the city ? Are there local processes of institutionalisation of these archival practices and what are their possible limits? Questions relating to the construction of a possible concept for each era and the practice of archival conservation in the past as well as reflections on their future conservation will be examined with a focus on the cities of Ghadames, Tozeur and Nefta, which, while having extremely strong identities of their own, have in some respects comparable issues. The contributors will address the issue from the time of decolonization, while reflecting on the impact of previous historical strata, in order to understand the issues of definition and conservation of these complex heritages.

Following this workshop, a research project with Libyan and Tunisian partners, supervised by Nora Lafi and Suaad Al-Ghafal will be formalized.

The HISDEMAB online workshop will take place on Monday (9:00-11:00 Berlin time) as a video conference

Organisers: Suaad Al-Ghafal (University of Tripoli – Leibniz-ZMO Berlin) and Nora Lafi (Leibniz-ZMO Berlin)

Participants :

Suaad AL-Ghafal (Tripoli University and member of the Ghadames Association for the Heritage and Manuscripts AFHM – Leibniz-ZMO Berlin)

Emna Bchir (Ecole Nationale d’Architecture et d’Urbanisme ENAU Tunis)

Nora Lafi (Leibniz-ZMO Berlin)

Nureddine M. H. Althani (Ghadames Association for the Heritage and Manuscripts AFHM)

Aboulquasim Basheer Qassim Youshaa  (President of the Ghadames Association for the Heritage and Manuscripts AFHM)

Abduljabbar  Abdulqader Assaghir Abuzyd (Vice-President of the Ghadames Association for the Heritage and Manuscripts AFHM)

التراث والمحفوظات ومفاهيم الحفظ وممارساته في مرآة الأصالة وتحديات الرقمنة: تأملات في حالات غدامس ونفتا وتوزر

تأتي ورشة العمل هذه في إطار استمرارية الأسئلة البحثية لبرنامج إ س د م ب والمناقشات التي أجريت خلال ورشة العمل الدولية في برلين حول المحفوظات ودور المجتمع المدني وتحديات الرقمنة .المشاركون مدعوون للتفكير في مفهوم التراث من وجهة نظر التشكل الحضري والأنماط المعمارية المختلفة، وكذلك من وجهة نظر تعبئة مفاهيم الأرشفة والحفظ وستكون أيضا مناقشة مسألة قضايا البحث المتعلقة بالدور المدني للجمعيات لحماية التراث والمحفوظات .المشاركون مدعوون للتفكير في فكرة التراث من وجهة نظر التشكل الحضري والأنماط المعمارية المختلفة ومن وجهة نظر تعبئة مفاهيم الأرشفة والحفظ، كما ستكون أيضا مناقشة مسألة مشاكل البحث المتعلقة بالدور المدني للجمعيات لحماية التراث والمحفوظا

كيف يمكن لوجود هيئات محلية للحفاظ على المحفوظات العامة والخاصة ، وكذلك التراث المادي والمعماري وغير المادي ، أن يؤثر على هوية المدينة وعلاقتها بمفهوم الأصالة مع مرور الوقت؟ كيف يتطور الإجماع حول مسألة الحماية ، أو تستمر النزاعات ، وكيف تتم المناقشات أو القرارات التعاونية في المجتمعات المختلفة داخل المدينة؟ هل هناك عمليات محلية لإضفاء الطابع المؤسسي على ممارسات الأرشفة هذه وما هي حدودها المحتملة؟ ستتم دراسة الأسئلة المتعلقة ببناء مفهوم محتمل لكل عصر وممارسة الحفظ الأرشيفي في الماضي بالإضافة إلى الانعكاسات المتعلقة بالحفاظ عليها في المستقبل مع التركيز على مدن غدامس وتوزر ونفطة، والتي في حين أنها تتمتع بقوة كبيرة في هوياتهم الخاصة، في بعض النواحي قضايا قابلة للمقارنة .سيتناول المساهمون هذه القضية منذ نهاية الاستعمار، مع التفكير في تأثير الطبقات التاريخية السابقة، من أجل فهم قضايا تعريف هذه التراثات المعقدة والحفاظ عليه

ستعقد ورشة العمل عبر الإنترنت يوم الاثنين (9: 00-11: 00 بتوقيت برلين) كمؤتمر فيديو

The Hisdemab team is in Tunis for the Insaniyyat 2022 conference with two panels: “Institutions in Crisis reflections on possible democratic practices and organizations” on September 19, 11h00-13-13h00 and “Arrêt réflexif sur les études ottomanes aujourd’hui“, on September 22, 14h00-16h00.